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Country Guide- Spain
Introduction Spain starts the game as the fifth greatest power in the world. It has indisputably the most colonies out of any realm, stretching from Arcadia to South Asia. However, their Arcadian and Amerigan possessions have banded together under the banner of "Gran Columbia" and are attempting to split from the crown. There is also the matter of creating the Iberian Union, but that will come much later. Winning the Columbian War At first the situation might seem hopeless. The attrition in Gran Columbia is horrendously high due to low supply limits, so your troops will disintegrate just from traveling around. What's more is that Gran Colombia can mobilize while Spain is an ocean away. If the player doesn't know what they are doing, the Colombians will surround and destroy them. This is why AI Spain very rarely wins the Columbian rebellion. However, on a second glance, the situation not as bad as it seems. Spain still has Havana and two fleets that can help ferry troops over to Gran Colombia. In addition, Gran Colombia only has Mexican as an accepted culture. Since only accepted cultures can be mobilized, this means that, for all it's size, it is very possible to exhaust all of Gran Colombia's draft-able population. Finally, Spain starts allied to the Dual Monarchy, which will always accept a call to arms agains the Colombians. However, they will only send ships to the conflic until much later. Their ships to allow you to blockade all of Gran Colombia though, as well as grant you visibility on them. Spain's troops on Gran Colombia start divided: One brigade is in Lusitania (OTL Texas), one is in Granada (OTL Columbia), one is near Andagoya City (OTL Panama) and another is on the Yucatan Peninsula. Here is a step-by-step guide: 1) Use your fleets to move all your troops to one area. Not necessarily one province, but perhaps one state. This helps funnel in Gran Colombia's troops, so that they will always attack you first, giving you advantage. Your goal is to eventually exhaust all of Gran Colombia's troops in a war of attrition. 2) Mobilize your reserves and call in the Dual Monarchy. (This war will force you to take plenty of loans and will drive you into debt. Wining the war will grant you enough money to pay off any and all loans (1mill money). Alternatively, you can de-mobilize your troops once Gran Colombia's have been exhausted so you can pay off the loans without risking bankruptcy. Your call. ) 3) Use your fleets to ferry your mobilized divisions from Iberia to your area of choice 4) As soon as the Colombian divisions have been sufficiently been culled, start sieging them out. You need 85 warscore to win, so this will take a while. It is around this point that the Dual Monarchy might actually send divisions to help. 5) By now the remaining Colombian divisions will fall victim to their own attrition and be a non-issue. Go ahead and win! After the war As soon as Spain annexes Gran Colombia, an event will appear giving you prestige, a ridiculous amount of money money, and erasing Gran Colombia's cores. Soon after, a new event will fire, asking the player to consider giving Cuzco and Arquepipa back to the Incas. The player can choose to give the two states back, securing an alliance with the Incas and putting them under their sphere of influence, or they may keep them, giving the Incas a core on their territory and negative relations. Soon after that, the next event will fire, "The reorganization of Gran Colombia), which will determine how the player wants to structure their new world possessions now that the rebellion is quelled. The player gets three options, which will be detailed bellow (Spain keeps Havana (OTL Cuba) no matter which option is selected.): 1) "Keeping them under our surveillance is the best thing to do"--> Spain retains direct control over Gran Colombia. Keep in mind that this will reduce your already poor literacy dramatically (due to the illiterate population of the new world colonies) as well as ramp up administration costs significantly. 2)"Restore the old vice-royalties--> Gran Colombia will be split between Lusitania (Portuguese speaking, upper OTL Mexico), Mexico (Spanish-speaking, lower OTL Mexico), Greater Salvador (Central America, aka OTL Federal Republic of Central America) and Granada (OTL Venezuela/Colombia/Peru, aka OTL proposed Gran Colombia). They will be in Spain's sphere of influence, have 100 relations with Spain and will accept alliance offers. 3)"Divide the old vice-royalties"--> Same as above except the old vice-royalties will be divided to keep them weaker. Mexico will be divided between Mexico and Xalisco, Granada split into four other states etc. (Not recommended, as the old Vice-royalties are already pretty weak, making them even weaker seems like overkill.) The very last event in the event chain is "The end of the rebellion". Again, three options are presented: 1) "Absolutism will keep our empire strong"--> Both Spain and the colonies remain absolute monarchies. 2)"Homerule for the colonies but absolutism at home"--> The colonies become constitutional monarchies but Spain stays absolute monarchy.(This will make Spanish populations have more demand for constitution, aka make them more liberal). 3)"The war proved the necessity of reforms here and there" --> Both the colonies and Spain become constitutional monarchies. Forming the Iberian Union There are two ways to form the Iberian union as Spain. 1) Conquer all of Catalonian cores (aka, Aragon's Iberian holdings as well as Sardinia and Corsica). This one will take a while and cost a lot of infamy, and is as such quite inefficient. or 2) Wait until Aragon '''turns into '''Catalonia and then add it to your sphere of influence while you and/or Catalonia control all Catalonian cores. Aragon turns into Catalonia when it loses its holdings on the Italian peninsula, i.e. Two Sicilies. As such, an easy way to create Catalonia is to declare war on Aragon and release Two Sicilies from them. Keep in mind this will put the player in a truce with Catalonia, preventing them form influencing them until the truce is up, and by then some other great power might have gotten their hands on it. This process can be difficult, no matter which way the player chooses, but onec it is done, the player will be able to take the "Propose an Iberian Union" decision, which will make Spain inherit Catalonia and has a 60% chance of being a goor result and 40% chance of being a bad result. On a good result, Catalonian is added as an accepted culture, and on a bad result, Catalonian pops gain conscientiousness and militancy and 5 infamy is added. If the player gets a bad result, they can take a decision that will add Catalan as accepted culture later.